SPOTIFY SET TO ENTER LOSSLESS ARENA
Spotify, the music streaming platform it says has over 40million subscribers may be set to take on Tidal for lossless music streaming.
Spotify Hi-Fi is being spruiked as "The ultimate music experience" offering all Spotify Premium features along with "Lossless CD quality audio". The new tier is being offered at an additional US$10 above the current Premium (limited to 320kbps Ogg Vorbis) service price. Australian pricing is unknown at this stage.
Some news outlets are reporting that an in-app prompt for some users offered them the upgrade to the service, but users on message forums are reporting they received an error upon trying to sign up.
'Lossless' streaming theoretically only offers CD quality (16Bit/44kHz) resolution, whereas competitor Tidal already offers high-resolution streaming with their Masters pricing tier. The 'HiFi' tier is potentially a step forward for Spotify who are currently the largest subscriber based streaming platform, but as consumers are becoming more familiar with 'high-res' sound, will it be enough to stop Tidal's rapidly increasing subcriber base.
Spotify has not made any official statement yet. More information as it becomes available.
Marc Rushton
StereoNET’s Founder and Publisher was born in England and raised on British Hi-Fi before moving to Australia. He developed an early love of music and playing bass guitar before discovering the studio and the other side of the mixing desk. After writing for print magazines, Marc saw the future in digital publishing and founded the first version of StereoNET in 1999.
Posted in: Hi-Fi
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